When he's confronted by skeptics who doubt the possibility of ghosts, Patrick Doyle has a ready response.

"I'm very much a skeptic as well," says Doyle, who is one of two paranormal investigators featured on the Syfy series, "Ghost Mine."

"I think you have to be honest with yourself and be a skeptic to be in the paranormal field," says the 42-year-old. "You're always questioning."

But for those who scoff at the concept of paranormal activity, Doyle says this:

"I'd ask them first, have you had something that happened to you, heard something, seen something, that you can't explain?"

Doyle has, and it's those experiences that led him to his fascination with eerie phenomena. He continues to pursue his passion in Season 2 of "Ghost Mine," which premieres tonight on Syfy.

In Season 1 of the series, viewers met Doyle and his fellow sleuth Kristen Luman, who studied paranormal psychology at Portland State University.

These two accompanied a crew of miners working the Crescent Mine, near Sumpter, Ore., who were trying to find gold. Doyle and Luman, by contrast, were on the hunt for evidence of ghostly activity supposedly associated with the mine.

"It's a lot more dangerous this year," says Doyle, who worked on the series for the past three months. "We discovered a new tunnel, and some of the questions from last year are answered. But what makes this different from all the other ghost shows out there is we are dealing with cave-ins, and bad timber shifting, and bad air. There were a few times where I honestly thought I was going to die."

"Ghost Mine" Season 2 premiere

When: 10 tonight

Channel: Syfy

Online: syfy.com/ghostmine

Doyle traces his fascination with the paranormal back to when he was a 7-year-old.

"I was living in a town outside of Chicago, and I was a latchkey kid at the time," he recalls. He got home from school, and was playing video games, then heard a noise in the basement.

"I opened the door and looked down, and there's a man standing there. No features to his face, really. All I remember is he was wearing a very tall hat. Instead of running away, I stepped down the stairs, but when I did that, the shadow figure walked away."

Since then, Doyle says, he's been determined to find out more about such mysterious phenomena. He's had other strange experiences, including feeling "something grab my arm."

Though Doyle's paranormal interest has become his hobby, he also has a day job unrelated to hauntings and spooky scares.

"I'm a creative director at an advertising agency in downtown Portland," says Doyle. He moved to Portland from San Francisco about seven years ago. Doyle, who lives with his wife in Northeast Portland, has also written books for young readers, including a series called "Edgar Font's Hunt for a House to Haunt," and the "Lair of Forgotten Bears" picture book.

Season 2 of "Ghost Mine" will be preceded by a one-hour special, "Ghost Mine: Back on the Mountain," which brings together the miners and investigators for a campfire conversation about the previous season.

Doyle doesn't yet know if there will be a Season 3.

"Fingers crossed," he says. "We had 1.25 million viewers per episode" in Season 1. More people heard about the show after it aired, Doyle adds, "so we're all hoping from the buzz online" that ratings will be strong enough for a third season.

Doyle still wants to go after the truth that may be out there.

"The question still stands," he says, "what are we dealing with? Nobody really knows what ghosts are. Why are we seeing shadows? Why are we hearing these voices?"